WoW Down to 9.6 Million Subscribers

[Shaley]

This still isn't a big deal.

"Dying" arguments are comical. Game is almost 10 years old and it still has 9.6 million players paying to play. What the hell do you expect? Blizzard deserves a real life Feat of Strength called [Doing the Impossible]

[dfjdejulio]

Doubt they will shut down the servers...they will turn into a F2P model, get a lot more people, and then resist for another 3~4 years...then you can call this a "dying MMO"

I'm not so sure. If it were another company, yes, but I don't think they want "Titan" (or whatever their next MMO ends up being called) to exist in a context in which they have admitted "F2P" is a business model they're willing to consider.

But I suppose in a few years we'll see! I do not expect them to drop that low much sooner than that.

[Idrinkwhiterussians]

I can say that I am sure they have lost more subs with the HUGE latency debacle that is going on with the US and Canada.

It has been a month with unplayable lag for a lot of players, starting just after the new year.

[Coleslaw]

NO other game has managed to do what Blizzard has done, and continues to do. Retain a significant amount of their playerbase after so long. Look at any other MMO at the 8 year mark in their history....and I will guarantee you that they will be nowhere near as close as WoW.

[Duster505]

Considering this included the MOP launch in China.... its not good news. I expected them to at least hold their own this quarter.

But hey... I left cause of the new and poorly thought RPG systems in MOP - I can understand others that do the same. And 5.2 is just making it worse with extra ilvls for lower chance. No way I will return while thats how BLizzard think they will solve issues. Not realising that it will cause so many extra problems in guilds cause of loot greed.

But they need to get 5.2 out before end of March. If not we will see more than 1 million subs loss in 1st Quarter 2013. That will take the game down to new lows - and new games are coming.

[Deleted]

Morhaime just said "majority of the loss is from China"; which suprised me a lot.

[cFortyfive]

The NA region has ~230 servers. It could easily be reduced to 90, and should.

They definitely should. There are servers around here that have less than 100 characters at max level total.

[Shadowbane]

9,600,000 players oh no wow is definitely dead / dying.

Even with 5m it'd still be the most played MMO. So far as I'm concerned, nothing to really worry or smile about.

[Deleted]

False. Vanilla and BC players who tried the game again are leaving. out of 40 players I know who tried again, only one still plays.

That's my experience as well. Game is different (not better or worse - just different) than it used to be, old players resubscribe hoping to remember good old days, but get disappointed after they see all changes.

[Immitis]

"For the quarter ended December 31, 2012, the company delivered record GAAP net revenues of $1.77 billion, as compared with $1.41 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011. On a non-GAAP basis, the company’s net revenues were a record $2.60 billion, as compared with $2.41 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011. "

they also said they are doing BETTER than they expected.

point is? there making both more money than they expected to make and more than they did last year.

[Zokten]

Blizzard deserves a real life Feat of Strength called [Doing the Impossible]

Not sure how its "impossible"

[Shaley]

I can say that I am sure they have lost more subs with the HUGE latency debacle that is going on with the US and Canada.

It has been a month with unplayable lag for a lot of players, starting just after the new year.

What are you talking about?

[Zokten]

NO other game has managed to do what Blizzard has done, and continues to do. Retain a significant amount of their playerbase after so long. Look at any other MMO at the 8 year mark in their history....and I will guarantee you that they will be nowhere near as close as WoW.

RO.........

[Immitis]

I'm not so sure. If it were another company, yes, but I don't think they want "Titan" (or whatever their next MMO ends up being called) to exist in a context in which they have admitted "F2P" is a business model they're willing to consider.

But I suppose in a few years we'll see! I do not expect them to drop that low much sooner than that.

im going to laugh at this comment when blizzard announces titan as either free to play or free if you have wow

[Megadeth]

yeah well it's been like 5 months since last patch, they're too slow with content, people get bored, I figure it will increase a bit again when new patch is released. at least i'll subscribe then myself.
the way they drag the content is shameful and embarrassing for such a company. i hope it drops to like 3M, maybe then they'll start doing shit again. the problem is not how bad they are, they are basically the best, but how good they should be, considering how many players and money is involved. idk, at least my opinion on all this. a lot of other mmos have much more and often new stuff, better in-game service, even less bugs, but are in shadow of wow's popularity. I don't care, I play wow for 2 months and then something else until the new patch, just saying it's a shame.

[Deleted]

Subscription-based services are rarely as stable as one might dream. But we're talking of a drop from 10,000,000+ to 9,600,000. That's not even 1/10th of the subscription base. That's not even 1% of the subscription base.

Math is hard, isn't it?

[Tenjen]

meh, same old same old. end of patch numbers show downward numbers. 6 years running same cycle, of this and excuses, fanboys and haters with the same accusations, oneupmanship, same words and phrases and insults flung at each other.

iam gonna go kill elegon now and roll a bonus, maybe get the mount.

[Zokten]

Even with 5m it'd still be the most played MMO.

Currently I'm guessing?

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Okay dude he's not a fanboy. Happy?

Tackle my post, that's more interesting and fun.

I already addressed your original post on the grounds that it lacked a substantive argument. Your second post tries a little harder, but it ultimately makes a bold conclusion with little evidence to back it up, much like what attention-seeking bloggers do. Unfortunately, debating over such poorly formed arguments isn't fun.

[Amsden]

This is normal, Numbers soar after an expansion launches then go up and down between patches. A 4% drop really isn't as big a deal as people are making it out to be.